Disintegrating machine



y 30, 1967 J. G. BRYANT 3,322,355

DISINTEGRATING MACHINE Filed March 1, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. 1

INVENTOR. JAMES G. BRYANT DIS INTEGRATING MACHINE Filed March 1, 1965 2Sheets-Sheet 2 FIG.

FIG.2.

INVENTOR JAMES 5. BRYANT A T TOR/VEVS United States Patent Oh 3,322,355DISINTEGR TING MACHINE James G. Bryant, 1504 th Ave.,

Port Huron, Mich. 48060 Filed Mar. 1, 1965, Ser. No. 436,003

14 Claims. (Cl. 241-186) This invention relates to a distinguishingmachine and more particularly to a hammermill especially adapted forgrinding small glass articles such as hypodermic syringes, bottles,vials, etc.

In many hospitals it is standard practice to destroy all hypodermicsyringes once they are used, so that they are rendered unsuitable forfurther use. The destruction of such hypodermic syringes and other glassarticles, such as small bottles and vials, in a hammermill is an idealsolution to the problem. A hammermill designed for such use must meetseveral requirements. It must be compact in size, it must be capable ofhandling the loads to which it may be subjected, and it must berelatively inexpensive. The power required for grinding relatively smallglass articles, such as hypodermic syringes, bottles, etc., in ahammermill is relatively small. This can be accomplished in a relativelysmall hammermill having a highspeed rotor. However, it is necessary tofeed the materials to the rotor at a relatively slow, uniform rate ifthe use of a large motor capable of developing a high torque is to beavoided.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide adisintegrating machine of compact size, economical construction andwhich is designed to feed material into the disintegrating chamber at arelatively slow rate even though the material is deposited into themachine as a batch.

A further object of the invention resides in the provision of ahammermill which includes a hopper at its upper end into which a batchof material to be ground may be deposited and a material-receivingchamber below the hopper, together With a vibrating mechanism forcausing the batch of material to be ground to be fed at a relativelyslow rate from the material-receiving chamber into the hammermillchamber.

Further objects and advantages of the disintegrating machine accordingto the present invention will be apparent from the following descriptionand drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view, with portions broken away, of adisintegrating machine according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a vertical sectional view of the disintegrating machine.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view along the line 3--3 in FIG. 2.

The machine of the present invention generally comprises a sheet metalhousing 10 having side walls 12, 13, front and back walls 14, 16respectively, and a top wall 18. At the upper end of housing 10 there isprovided adjacent the front end of top wall 18 a hopper 20 defined bywalls 22 which converge to an inlet opening 24 in top wall 18. Withinhousing 10 and spaced below the top wall 18 there is provided a shelfmember 26 which extends between side walls 12, 13 and inclinesdownwardly from the front wall 14 of the housing. At its rear end shelf26 terminates forwardly of the rear wall 16 to define an outlet opening28. Shelf 26 defines at the upper end of housing 10 a material-receivingchamber 30 in which a batch of the material to be disintegratedaccumulates. The angle of inclination of shelf 26 is such that thematerial deposited in hopper 20 rests on shelf 26 but does not gravitateto the outlet opening 28 of its own accord. Thus, the inclination ofshelf 26 is no greater than what is commonly referred to as the angle offriction, namely,

ice

the angle of a plane relative to the horizontal greater than whichparticular material deposited on the plane would have a tendency toslide down the plane.

At the outlet opening 28 there is formed within housing 10 a dependingtapered chute 32 which discharges into a hammermill chamber 34. Chamber34 is generally cylindrically shaped and includes a peripheral wall 36which is imperforate around the top side thereof and which is perforatearound the bottom side thereof, as at 38. Chamber 34 is narrower incross-section than housing 10, one side thereof being defined by sidewall 13 of the housing and the other side thereof being defined by anupright plate 40 which is bent as at 42 so as to extend over to andconnect with the side wall 12, as at 44.

The lower portion 46 of wall 40 extends the full length of housing 10from front to back and cooperates with the horizontally extending wall48 to form a discharge chamber 50 in which a sliding drawer 52 for theground material is arranged.

Within chamber 34 there is arranged a rotor 54 of generally conventionaldesign having a plurality of hammers 56 pivotally supported around theperiphery thereof. Rotor 54 is mounted on a shaft 58 journalled inpillow blocks. One of the pillow blocks, designated 60, is supported onan angle bracket 62 mounted on wall 40. The other pillow block, which isnot illustrated, is similarly supported on the outer face of side wall13 of housing 10. An electric motor 64 mounted on a control box 66 hasits output shaft 68 axially aligned with the drive shaft 58 of rotor 54and directly coupled thereto by means of a coupling 70. A countershaft72 is journalled in pillow blocks 74 mounted on the top wall 48 of thedischarge chamber 50. Shaft 72 has a pulley 76 keyed thereto. Pulley 76is connected by a belt 78 with a smaller pulley to the rotor shaft 58. Aweight 84 is eccentricall'y mounted on pulley 76 by means of a screw 86.

The whole housing assembly is mounted on a bottom plate 88 provided witha plurality of rubber pads 90 for supporting the machine on a floorsurface.

In operation, the material to he disintegrated and ground is dumped as abatch into hopper 20, and from the hopper it is deposited upon theinclined shelf 26, as shown in FIG. 2. As indicated previously, theinclination of shelf 26 is such that the material will not gravitatedown to the outlet opening 28 of its own accord. However, when the motor64 is operating the belt drive from pulley causes the unbalanced pulleywheel 76 to rotate and thereby causes the whole machine to vibrate. Thevibration is transmitted to shelf 26 and causes the batch of materialdeposited thereon through hopper 20 to gravitate slowly toward outletopening 28. Thus, even though motor 64 may be of a high speed, lowtorque rating, it is capable of driving rotor 54 while the material isbeing discharged into chamber 34 because the batch of material to beground is fed at a relatively slow rate to the rotor.

The feeding rate of the material on shelf 26 depends to a large extentupon the frequency of vibration. This can be varied to produce the bestfeeding rate in relation to the size and speed of rotor 54 bycontrolling the relative sizes of pulleys 80 and 76. In the arrangementshown, for example, the rate of vibration is substantially less than thespeed of rotation of rotor 54. Thus the present arrangement enables therate of vibration and the rate of rotation of the hammermill rotor to bevaried as desired.

Thus it will be seen that I have provided a machine for disintegratingor grinding hypodermic needles, vials, bottles, and other small glassarticles which is compact in size and economical in construction. Themachine as disclosed herein eliminates the need for the provision of aseparate motor-driven vibrator for feeding the material 3 m2) at arelatively slow rate to the disintegrating chamber. Neverthelessmaterial to be ground can be fed into the machine as a batch withoutdanger of stalling the rotor. The rubber pads 90 absorb the vibration ofthe whole machine and prevent such vibration from being transmitted tothe floor surface on which the machine 13 mounted. The use of acountershaft for supporting the unbalanced rotor enables the use of arelatively small diameter hammermill rotor with a high speed, low torquemotor while obtaining a frequency of vibration desirable for feeding ofmaterials substantially lower than the speed of the drivemotor.

I claim:

1. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising ahousing having a hopper at its upper end, the lower end of said hopperbeing defined by a shelf inclined slightly downward in a direction awayfrom the upper end of said hopper and defining an outlet openingadjacent the lower end thereof, means forming a hammermill chamber intowhich a batch of material on said shelf is adapted to gravitate throughsaid outlet opening, a hammermill rotor journalled for rotation in saidchamber, a motor for driving said rotor and a vibrator mounted on thehousing and driven by said motor for vibrating said housing whereby tocause material on said shelf to gravitate to said outlet opening anddischarge into said rotor chamber at a slow uniform rate.

2. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising ahousing having an inlet opening adjacent its upper end, means forming amaterial-receiving chamber into which material is adapted to bedeposited as a batch through said inlet opening, said material-receivingchamber having a bottom wall which inclines downwardly in a directionaway from said inlet opening at an angle no greater than the angle offriction of the material whereby material deposited on said bottom wallthrough said inlet opening will tend to remain thereon, said bottom wallterminating at its lower end in an outlet opening, means forming ahammermill chamber into which material is adapted to gravitate throughsaid outlet opening, a hammermill rotor journalled for rotation in saidchamher, a motor for driving said rotor and a vibrator mounted on thehousing and driven by said motor for vibrating said housing whereby tocause material on said shelf to gravitate to said outlet opening anddischarge into said rotor chamber at a slow uniform rate.

3. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising ahousing having an inlet opening adjacent its upper end, means forming amaterial-receiving chamber into which material is adapted to bedeposited as a batch through said inlet opening, said material-receivingchamher having a bottom wall which inclines downwardly in a directionaway from said inlet opening at an angle no greater than the angle offriction of the material whereby material deposited on said bottom wallthrough said inlet opening will tend to remain thereon, said bottom wallterminating at its lower end in an outlet opening means forming adisintegrating chamber into which material is adapted to be dischargedthrough said outlet opening, a disintegrating means in said chamber, amotor having a drive shaft operatively connected with saiddisintegrating means in said chamber and a vibrator on said housingoperatively connected with said motor drive shaft for vibrating saidhousing whereby to cause material on said bottom wall to gravitate tosaid outlet opening and discharge into said disintegrating chamber at aslow uniform rate.

4. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 3, wherein saidvibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor.

5. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 3,

wherein said vibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor journalled forrotation about an axis spaced from the axis of said drive shaft andmeans interconnecting the drive shaft with the unbalanced rotor fordriving the unbalanced rotor at a speed different from that of the driveshaft.

6. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 5, wherein saidlast-mentioned means drives the unbalanced rotor at a speed less thanthe speed of the drive shaft.

7. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 5, wherein saidlast-mentioned means comprises a countershaft on which the unbalancedrotor is mounted and pulley and belt means interconnecting the driveshaft and the countershaft.

8. A machine for disintegrating or grinding materials comprising ahousing having an inlet opening adjacent its upper end, means forming amaterial-receiving chamber into which material is adapted to bedeposited as a batch through said inlet opening, said material-receivingchamber having a bottom wall which inclines downwardly in a directionaway from said inlet opening at an angle no greater than the angle offriction of the material whereby material deposited on said bottom wallthrough said inlet opening will tend to remain thereon, said bottom wallterminating at its lower end in an outlet opening, means forming ahammermill chamber into which the batch material deposited on saidbottom wall is adapted to gravitate through said outlet opening, a shaftjournalled on said housing and supporting a hammermill rotor forrotation within said hammermill chamber, a motor having an output shaftcoupled with the hammermill rotor shaft, a vibrator mounted on saidhousing, means interconnecting said vibrator with one of said shafts forvibrating said housing whereby to cause material on said bottom wall togravitate to said outlet opening and discharge into said hammermillroto-r chamber at a slow uniform rate.

9. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein saidvibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor.

10. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein saidvibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor journalled for rotation about anaxis spaced from the axis of said drive shaft and means interconnectingthe drive shaft with the unbalanced rotor for driving the unbalancedrotor at a speed different from that of the hammermill rotor.

11. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein saidvibrator comprises an unbalanced rotor journalled for rotation on saidhousing about an axis spaced from the axis of rotation of said one shaftand including sheave and belt means interconnecting said unbalancedrotor and said one shaft for rotating the unbalanced rotor at a speedless than the speed of rotation of the hammermill rotor.

12. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 11, wherein thehammermill rotor shaft and the motor shaft are axially aligned anddirectly coupled.

13. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 8, wherein thehousing includes a pair of side walls, said bottom wall being connectedto said side walls, said vibrator comprising an unbalanced rotor andincluding support means connected with said side walls and on which saidunbalanced rotor is journalled.

14. A disintegrating machine as called for in claim 13, including aplurality of resilient pads for mounting said housing on a floorsurface.

References Cited FOREIGN PATENTS 6,417 4/1891 Great Britain.

WILLIAM W. DYER, IR., Primary Examiner.

1. A MACHINE FOR DISINTEGRATING OR GRINDING MATERIALS COMPRISING AHOUSING HAVING A HOPPER AT ITS UPPER END, THE LOWER END OF SAID HOPPERBEING DEFINED BY A SHELF INCLINED SLIGHTLY DOWNWARD IN A DIRECTION AWAYFROM THE UPPER END OF SAID HOPPER AND DEFINING AN OUTLET OPENINGADJACENT THE LOWER END THEREOF, MEANS FORMING A HAMMERMILL CHAMBER INTOWHICH A BATCH OF MATERIAL ON SAID SHELF IS ADAPTED TO GRAVITATE THROUGHSAID OUTLET OPENING, A HAMMERMILL ROTOR JOURNALLED FOR ROTATION IN SAIDCHAMBER, A MOTOR FOR DRIVING SAID ROTOR AND A VIBRATOR MOUNTED ON THEHOUSING AND DRIVEN BY SAID MOTOR FOR VIBRATING SAID HOUSING WHEREBY TOCAUSE MATERIAL ON SAID SHELF TO GRAVITATE TO SAID OUTLET OPENING ANDDISCHARGE INTO SAID ROTOR CHAMBER AT A SLOW UNIFORM RATE.